Tuesday, January 31, 2012

How can I knowingly and freely do wrong?

I accept the following two claims:

Every free action is done for a reason.

If an action is obligatory, then I have on balance reason to do it.

Consider cases where I know that an action is obligatory, but I don't do it. How could that be? Well, one option is that I don't realize that obligatory actions are ones I have on balance reason to do. Put that case aside: I do know it sometimes when I do wrong. So I know that I have on balance reason to do an action, but I refrain from it. But then how could I have a reason for my refraining? And without a reason, my action wouldn't be free.

It strikes me that this version of the problem of akrasia may not be particularly difficult. There is no deep puzzle about how someone might choose a game of chess over a jog for a reason. A jog is healthier but a game of chess is more intellectually challenging, and one might choose the game of chess because it is more intellectually challenging. In other words, there is a respect in which the game of chess is better than the jog, and when one freely chooses the game of chess, one does so on the basis of some such respect. The jog, of course, also has something going for it: it is healthier, and one can freely choose it because it is better in respect of health.

Now, suppose that the choice is between playing a game of chess and keeping one's promise to visit a sick friend. Suppose the game of chess is more pleasant and intellectually challenging than visiting the sick friend. One can freely choose the game of chess because there are respects in which it is better than visiting the friend. There are, of course, respects in which the game of chess is worse: it is a breaking of a promise and a neglecting of a sick friend. But that there are respects in which visiting the sick friend is better does not make there be no reason to play chess instead, since there are respects in which the chess game is better.

But isn't visiting the sick friend on balance better? Certainly! But being on balance better is just another respect in which visiting the sick friend is better. It is still in some other respects better to play the game of chess. If one freely chooses to play the game of chess, then one chooses to do so on account of those other respects. That one option is on balance better is compatible with the other option being in some respects better. It is no more mysterious how one can act despite the knowledge that another option is on balance better than how one can act despite the knowledge that another option is more pleasant. The difference is that when one chooses against an action that one takes to be on balance better, one may incur a culpability that one does not incur when one chooses against an action that is merely more pleasant, but the incurring of that culpability is just another reason not to do the action.

But isn't it decisive if an action is on balance better? Isn't it irrational to go against such a decisive reading? Well, one can understand a decisive reason in three ways: (a) a reason that in fact decides one; (b) a reason that cannot but decide one; and (c) a reason that rationality requires one to go with. That an action is on balance better need not be what decides you, even if in fact you do the on balance better action. Now, granted, rationality requires one to go with an on balance better action. But that rationality requires something does not imply you will do it.

But if you don't, aren't you irrational, and hence not responsible? Well, if by irrational one means lack of responsiveness to reasons, then that would indeed imply lack of responsibility, but that is not one's state when one chooses to do the wrong thing for a reason. It need not even be true that one is not responsive to what is on balance better. For to be responsive to a reason does not require that one act on that reason. The person who chooses the chess game over the jog is likely quite responsive to reasons of health. If she were not responsive to reasons of health, it might not be a choice but a shoo-in. Likewise, the person who chooses against what is on balance better is responsive to what is on balance better, but goes against it.

Now, of course, the person who knowingly does what she knows she on balance has reason not to do, does not respond to the reason in the way that she should. In that sense, she is irrational. But that sense of irrationality is quite compatible with responsibility.

9 comments:

1. I do not think being “on balance better” is just another respect in which A might be better than B. If it were, we could ask whether A is better than B in respect of health, whether A is better than B in respect of pleasure, and whether A is better than B on balance, and then ask whether, say, the health and on-balance reasons outweighed the pleasure reasons. But that is non-sensical or trivial; the idea of “better on balance” is the idea of summing up and already weighing all the other kinds of reasons.

Perhaps a clearer way to put this is to say that, to ask whether one ought to do what is best health-wise or pleasure-wise is an open question, but to ask whether one ought to do what is best on balance is not an open question. Thus the incommensurability between the reasons provided in the first case does not carry over to the reasons provided in the second case.

2. I cannot tell what the criteria are, exactly, for being responsible for actions. In particular, are we responsible for non-akratic wrongdoings? Suppose I choose a chess game over visiting a sick friend, believing (falsely) that on balance I have more reason to choose the chess game? Or what if I can see no reason to keep my promises to sick people at all, and it’s a shoo-in? I would think I am responsible in either case. But I’m not sure whether this view agrees.

1. By the way, the same interesting phenomenon occurs at lower levels. For instance, consider the respect of being "on balance healthier". One option might be cardiacly healthier and healthier on balance while another option might be healthier in respect of knees. (For instance, jogging.) Does it make sense to ask whether an action that is cardiacly healthier and healthier on balance is healthier than an action that is only healthier in respect of knees? Yes. The answer is, of course, trivial. But it's still a sensible question.

A question does not cease to be sensible just because the answer is trivial.

Moreover, motivationally there is no subsumption. Suppose you learn (say, on testimonial grounds) that you have on balance reason not to buy stuff made of a certain plastic. If that's the only information you have, your motivation will be low. But suppose you learn that buying stuff made of that plastic significantly contributes to serious deforestation in some area and stuff made of other plastics is only the tiniest amount more expensive and otherwise just as good. That is likely to be much more motivating. And this is true even if the rational strength of the reason hasn't changed. Suppose that in the first case you had no idea what's wrong with buying that plastic, but had the belief that the reason not to buy it had the same weight as a reason derived from the danger of serious deforestation. Learning that it is this reason, and not merely a reason of this weight is motivationally relevant.

We could say that this motivational fact is an aspect of our irrationality. In a way it is, but in a way it is not (as per my distinction in the post). First, you have one reason not to buy the stuff: namely, that there was on balance reason not to buy the stuff. Second, you have two reasons: there is on balance reason not to buy the stuff and buying the stuff causes deforestation. It is true that the on-balance strength of the latter two reasons (the thin plus thick one) is no greater than the on-balance force of just the thin reason. But the on-balance strength is not the same as the rational force.

The same can happen in the health case. Knowing that jogging is on balance much better healthwise than leading a sedentary life can fail to motivate one while having the thicker health reason that jogging is cardiacly much better may motivate one.

"whether one ought to do what is best health-wise or pleasure-wise is an open question, but to ask whether one ought to do what is best on balance is not an open question"

Agreed. Compare: "whether one ought to do what is cardiacly or knee-wise best is an open question, but to ask whether one healthwise-ought to do what is healthwise best on balance is not an open question." And then the on-balance case just removes the "healthwise" qualifiers.

2. We are at most derivatively responsible for non-akratic wrongdoings. Compare two cases.

Case A. My past sin has hardened my heart to such a degree that I do not see a friend's needs as reason-giving.

Case B. My past sin has hardened my child's heart to such a degree that she does not see a friend's needs as reason-giving.

In Case A, I am responsible for my failure to respond to my friend's needs, derivatively from my earlier sin. In Case B, I am responsible for my child's failure to respond to her friend's needs, derivatively from my earlier sin.

On my official view, there is no difference between the kind of responsibility I bear for my failure to respond to my friend's needs in Case A and the kind of responsibility I bear for my child's failure to respond to her friend's needs in Case B. Now in the latter case, the kind of culpability I have is not a focal case of agential culpability. It is a culpability for the bad effects of agency, the kind of responsibility that Hegel is talking about when he quotes the proverb that "A stone thrown is the devil's", though Hegel goes too far.

Now, granted, in Case A there is agency of mine involved in the neglect of the friend's needs, while in Case B there need be no agency of mine during my child's neglect of her friend's needs. But the culpability is of the same sort. (There may be more culpability in my case if it is said that I have an even greater responsibility for my own moral formation than for that of my children. But it is not completely clear that I do, and even if I do, it does not change the kind of culpability.)

If I suddenly came into existence blind to the reason-giving force of a friend's needs, I would in no way be responsible, just as I would be in no way responsible for passing by the wounded person on the side of the road if I was literally blind and deaf from birth. In both cases I would be falling short of human nature, and in the former case the falling short would be much, much graver, but neither kind of falling short would involve responsibility.

After all, compare the case where I come into existence altogether insensitive to reasons. Indeed, quite plausibly, infants are quite insensitive to reasons, and hence we do not hold them responsible for anything. Likewise, an inculpable insensitivity to reasons of a certain kind makes one immune to culpability for actions that go against reasons of that kind.

Compare this case. Out of hatred for myself or for God, I have blinded myself physically. I then fail to help you when you are lying wounded by the side of the road, because I naturally don't notice you (maybe you're not conscious so you're not calling out to me). I bear a responsibility for this failure. But it is a responsibility entirely derivative from my culpability for blinding myself. It is not focal agential responsibility for failing to help you. Likewise, if, as I walk self-blinded along the dusty road, I throw dust on your wounds, thereby increasing your sufferings. I am derivatively responsible for the increase in your sufferings, but not in the primary agential responsibility kind of way.

Ad 1. I think I misunderstood you on the first pass. You seem to be arguing that (1) I am responsible for an action if it is free; an action is free if it is done for a reason; actions which are done for reasons but not for on-balance reasons are irrational but nevertheless responsive to reasons. On reflection I think you’ve defended the last claim well enough.

I was taking you to offer an explanation of why we sometimes choose against what we know to have the best reasons; this I don’t think you’ve done, but you are not setting out to do it, so that’s okay.

Ad 2. I get the analogy, though I don’t agree. It seems to me that defects in the will are quite different from defects in the body. And “defect” is different from “as yet undeveloped”—the prospect of change is crucial. My own analogy: suppose an individual came into existence, with a fully-formed, irreformable, and satanically evil will. We might or might not have pity on this person (I’m doubtful) but I feel sure we would exile them somehow—either to the wilderness or a jail cell or death or somewhere else. But permanent exile is precisely what hell is all about.

I am trying both to make it plausible that one can with some sort of rationality go against what one has on balance reason to do, as well as to offer an explanation.

The explanation is basically that unless an option A dominates an option B--in every respect, A is better than or equal to B--it should be possible to choose B instead of A for the sake of the respect in which B is better than A. And being on balance better isn't a way of dominating.

Let me put my problem this way. Suppose I offer someone the $1 in Box A or the $100 in Box B, and there are no further restrictions or attractions to either choice. Could someone choose Box A? I suppose so, and for a reason—one gets a dollar. On the other hand this choice is irrational, because in the only respect that counts, money, choosing Box B > choosing Box A. So on your view this is a dominated choice, and one cannot (intentionally, freely, responsibly?) choose it.

However, what really is the difference if we simply tell our agent that choosing Box A will get you $1 but choosing Box B is better on balance? It seems to me that someone could still choose Box A, and for the same reason—they get a dollar. But the choice is equally irrational, because in the only respect that counts at the end of the day—the balance of reasons—choosing Box B > choosing Box A. But in your view this could be a (intentional, free, responsible) choice. But what important about the situation has changed?

Here is another example along the same lines. Suppose I offered someone a choice between five $20 bills versus one $50 bill. I think, on your criterion, this is still a dominated choice, in that $100 > $50. On the other hand, one might point out that the denominations are different, so there are different attractions to the choices: five attractions of the $20-bill type, versus one attraction of the $50-bill type. But, we sensibly reply, the denominations are irrelevant: they sum (“balance”!) to $100 vs. $50, and that is the only comparison that matters.

I am having trouble seeing why the attractions of money, pleasure, health, etc. are not merely different “denominations” of reasons, and if we can say that one set of them sums/balances to an amount greater than any alternative (a big “if”! But one whose antecedent is met when we start talking about on-balance reasons) why isn’t that a dominant choice?

Well, any attraction of Box A is an attraction of Box B, in your original case. For in both cases you get your dollar.

Now, if you instead say Box B is on balance better, that leaves open the possibility that it's not monetarily better. So one might choose Box A if one wants certainty of a dollar, since that's an attraction of Box A that doesn't apply to Box B.

Compare cases of risk aversion.

Box A: $1Box B: 10% chance of $1000.

On balance, you have reason to choose Box B. But Box A has something going for it that Box B does not--the certainty of the dollar.

"...because in the only respect that counts at the end of the day—the balance of reasons..."

Surely that's not the only respect that counts at the end of the day. It matters whether an option favored by a balance of reasons is also more pleasant. It matters, well, in respect of pleasure, which is a good. Of course, be it pleasant or not, one has on balance reason to choose it. So in terms of the epistemic problem of finding a choice favored by the balance of reasons, it does not matter whether it's pleasant once we know that the balance of reasons favors it. But for the agent it certainly matters, and choice isn't the solution to an epistemic problem, but to a practical one.

"Suppose I offered someone a choice between five $20 bills versus one $50 bill. I think, on your criterion, this is still a dominated choice"

That depends on further details. If one cares about minor differences in the bulk of one's wallet, preferring a slimmer wallet to a fatter one, there is no domination, since the $50 is superior in respect of bulk. Granted, this superiority is so slight that it is unlikely one would choose so, unless one is so rich that the monetary difference between $100 and $50 is also slight. Likewise, the $50 is superior in respect of proudly exhibiting one's independence from mammon.

I've not read the article or the comments but why wouldn't the second statement be not that what's obligatory is what you have on balance reason for; rather that what's obligatory is what there are on balance reasons for you to have?

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